Amid increasingly strained ties with the US, Russia has flexed its military muscle by testfiring at least five long-range missiles in a series of high-profile defence exercises over last two days.

Amid increasingly strained ties with the US, Russia has flexed its military muscle by testfiring at least five long-range missiles in a series of high-profile defence exercises over last two days.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday watched the firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from "Tula" nuclear submarine in Barents Sea in the north of the country, which for the first time hit a designated target in the equatorial Pacific Ocean 11,457 kilometres away.

Summing up the successful strike practice Medvedev declared, "the nuclear shield of Russia is in perfect order."

"Russia will further strengthen its military component. Of course we will induct newer weapons and force-multipliers into the armed forces," Medvedev said congratulating the national Strategic Nuclear Forces on the successful missile firings in the course of 'Stability-2008' wargames.

The tests come amid increasingly strained ties with the US following the Georgian conflict and consistent Russian opposition to Washington's plans for a missile-defence system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Soviet satellites now in NATO.

According to naval spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo, it was the first full-range test of new generation Sineva (NATO code name Skiff) submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

Medvedev watched the firing of 'Topol' nuclear missile from a northern spaceport of Plesetsk in Archangelsk region, which hit the designated target over 6 thousand kilometres away in the far eastern Kura firing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula.